The Secret Doctrine Volume 3.pdf

Voluntary Incarnation - (Page 365) It is neither a result nor a cause, but an ever-present,
eternal Is, as Nâgasena defined it. Hence it can have no relation to, or concern with, action,
merit, or demerit, since these are subject to Karma. All this is very true, but still to our mind
there is an important difference between the two. An Avatâtara is ; a Jîvanmukta becomes
one. If the state of the two is identical, not so are the causes which lead to it. An Avatâra is a
descent of a God into an illusive form; a Jîvanmukta, who may have passed through
numberless incarnations and may have accumulated merit in them, certainly does not
become a Nirvâni because of that merit, but only because of the Karma generated by it,
which leads and guides him in the direction of the Guru who will initiate him into the mystery
of Nirvâna and who alone can help him to reach this abode.
The Shâstras say that from our works alone we obtain Moksha, and if we take no pains there
will be no gain and we shall be neither assisted nor benefited by Deity [the Mahâ-Guru].
Therefore it is maintained that Gautama, though an Avatâra in one sense, is a true human
Jîvanmukta, owing his position to personal merit, and thus more than an Avatâra. It was
personal merit that enabled him to achieve Nirvâna.
On the voluntary and conscious incarnations of Adepts there are two types—those of
Nirmânakâyas, and those undertaken by the probationary chelâs who are on their trial.
The greatest, as the most puzzling mystery of the first type lies in the fact, that such re-birth
in a human body of the personal Ego of some particular Adept—when it has been dwelling in
the Mâyâvi or the Kâma Rûpa, and remaining in the Kâma Loka—may happen even when
his “Higher Principles” are in the state of Nirvâna. [ From the so-called Brahmâ Loka—the
seventh and higher world, beyond which all is arûpa, formless, purely spiritual—to the lowest
world and insect, or even to an object such as a leaf, there is perpetual revolution of the
condition of existence, evolution and re-birth. Some human beings attain states or spheres
from which there is only a return in a new Kalpa (a day of Brahmâ): there are other states or
spheres from which there is only return after 100 years of Brahmâ (Mahâ Kalpa, a period
covering 311,040.000.000.000 years). Nirvâna, it is said, is a state from which there is no
return. Yet it is maintained that there may be, as exceptional cases, re-incarnation from that
state: only such incarnations are illusion, like everything else on this plane, as will be shown.]
Let it be understood that the above expressions are used for popular purposes, and therefore
that what is written does not deal with this deep and mysterious question from the highest
plane, that of absolute spirituality, nor again from the highest philosophical point of view,
comprehensible but to the very few. It must not be supposed that anything can go (Page 366)
into Nirvâna which is not eternally there; but human intellect in conceiving the Absolute must
put It as the highest term in an indefinite series. If this be borne in mind a great deal of
misconception will be avoided. The content of this spiritual evolution is the material on
various planes with which the Nirvânî was in contact prior to his attainment of Nirvâna. The
plane on which this is true, being in the series of illusive planes, is undoubtedly the highest.
Those who search for that must go to the right source of study, the teachings of the
Upanishads, and must go in the right spirit. Here we attempt only to indicate the direction in
which the search is to be made, and in showing a few of the mysterious Occult possibilities
we do not bring our readers actually to the goal. The ultimate truth can be communicated
only from Guru to initiated pupil.
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